Extra long post incoming
….
NJ’s cross examination of LL and his closing statement were some of the most powerful parts IMO of the entire trial. The actual evidence stage IMO came across as a little complicated at times and didn’t have the ‘wow factor’ for me but that’s most likely due to having to rely on updates and those updates likely weren’t relaying the actual spoken words, we couldn’t hear the tone in which witnesses answered questions on the stand, we couldn’t see their body language etc so couldn’t tell how each witness came across either.
Because of how long the prosecutions case went on for, plus the delays for public holidays, absences etc.. it might have lost momentum at times IMO. Some of the most powerful evidence I recall was the medical experts for the prosecution. The testimony about TPN bags, insulin c peptide, how medical equipment works etc I found hard to grasp and IMO some jurors may have too since their question about the insulin c peptide.
I recall one medical expert (may have been Dr Evans but I’m not 100%) under cross examination when BM was suggesting alternative causes for collapse and trying to get the expert to admit there were other possible causes, the expert answered with ‘it’s possible, but not probable’ that answer has stuck with me ever since and it’s the way I look at the whole case now. I don’t know if it was a powerful moment in court but for me just reading the update it had an impact on me. IMO it was a moment (only JMO) that I thought back to when all the links that LL claims were ‘coincidences’ were being mentioned in court. When BM was making his closing speech saying ‘the experts admitted
this was a possibility’ I kept coming back to that quote ‘possible but not probable’.
I remember the reporting being very hit and miss around the middle of the prosecution case, and recall thinking that the evidence for a few charges, namely baby H was patchy and not very solid. However, when NJ delivered his magnificent closing speech he showed IMO that some of the charges I were initially unsure on were some of the most solid, JMO. He built the puzzle piece by piece, demonstrated the links and similarities between cases perfectly and then tied the entire case together with a big bow on top. That was when I went from thinking deliberations might take 3-4 weeks+ to thinking verdicts may be reached in as little as a week. Then when the judge gave his summing up and gave the jury instructions it solidified my opinion that verdicts could be quicker than I initially thought.
Clearly I was wrong and now I’m wondering if there were parts of the cross examination of prosecution witnesses that raised doubt for some jurors. But I think it’s very easy to get sucked into the smaller details, like with the c peptide question. A lot of it comes down to whether the jury believe the prosecution witness or LL, when there are 2 conflicting statements they have been told to weigh up who is most likely to be telling the truth. E.g the situation with baby E’s mum.. who should they believe, the mother of an allegedly murdered child, or LL who was shown to have changed her story and twisted the truth about some very small things and as she herself admitted ‘cannot recall’ many events. And whether they can be convinced that it is more likely that all of these coincidences were nothing more than unfortunate innocent things that occurred to an innocent LL, who merely forgot a few things and suddenly remembered them on the stand.
Which is more probable? Is all the jury have to first decide, once they can agree on that, IMO the decision for each charge becomes easier. Yes, there are many possibilities. A masked intruder
could have spiked TPN bags with insulin, babies bleeding
could have been caused by intubation or NG tubes, some of the babies
could have been vulnerable and had other medical problems caused by prematurity, LL
could have been searching up parents randomly because they were on her mind for some reason, she
could have been so unlucky that she was the only staff member present for every single suspicious collapse.
But when considered as a whole, together with everything we know now. Is it probable that a masked intruder poisoned babies with insulin on 2 seperate occasions, that babies who were otherwise doing well collapsed and died/almost died around the time LL was searching up their parents on Facebook and taking home handover notes, all while LL was on shift? And that’s without even touching on the Air Embolism, the special interest she showed in babies texting about them when she wasn’t even on shift, notes allegedly being falsified, over feeding, twins randomly collapsing within 24 hours of eachother, predicting ‘he’s not leaving here alive is he?’, plus much much more.
Is all of that probable? Or simply possible? Has all of that just happened by chance and somehow randomly linked LL in one way or another to every single baby’s collapse/death? Or is she a serial killer?
All MOO and JMO!
Sorry I went way off on a tangent that wasn’t even part of your question!
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